How To Cut A Round Cake So The Leftovers Won’t Dry Out

On the occasions when you are allowed to have your cake and eat it too (which I never understood because of course if you own a cake, you should eat it, otherwise what’s the point in having it?) and don’t manage to serve it all up in one sitting, you might stow the leftovers in the refrigerator. But if it’s a round cake, those two exposed cuts can leave the cake dry and stale after a night spent uneaten. WHAT TO DO?

Settle down, folks. Your round cakes can stay spongy and fresh, oh yes, they can, according to a mathematician writing in 1906 who was clearly either very greedy or had no friends to share cake with.

As demonstrated in a video from Numberphile’s Alex Bellos (h/t to The Salt) called “The Scientific Way to Cut a Cake,” Sir Francis Galton wrote in a 1906 letter to the journal Nature that the “ordinary method of cutting out a wedge is very faulty.”

See, cutting wedges leaves two walls of exposed cake, which will dry out even if you cover the cake in plastic. But if you cut more rectangular pieces starting from the middle of the cake, and keep pushing the remainder back into a circular shape (keeping it that way with a rubber band), it’ll weather out the fridge much better.

While I don’t have this problem because leftover cake does not exist in my home, check out the video below if you’re a multi-day cake eater: